living on the North Norfolk Coast

I forgot to mention, in my last blog, about the Gardening Club meeting last Tuesday afternoon. The subject was Rockery Gardens and the talk was presented by Gail Harland. Gail’s talk wasn’t quite what I expected. I thought it would be, how to create a rockery and the types of plants are best suited, in a fairly arid area. Instead, Gail covered the history of rockeries. Initially these were just a collection of rocks and stones with no plants. Favoured by the rich, as a

I have two more village events in September to add to those I mentioned in my earlier blogs. At the Overstrand Club and Bar (aka the Conservative Club), located at the top of The Londs, there will be a Happy Handbag Disco on 5th September. This starts at 8 p.m., entry is free and open to non-members. On the 12th September at 7 p.m. Poppyland Singers will be presenting a Choral Concert, in St Martins Church. Entrance is free, with a retiring collection which will be donate

I had a bit of a Victor Meldrew, ‘I don’t believe it’, moment on Wednesday evening. Why? It was because after so many weeks this summer of warmth and sunshine, pretty well guaranteed each day, it was all change for the Cromer Carnival Parade. We can’t do anything about nature but how unfair was it when the heavens opened with accompanying thunder and lightning – the full works – as the parade set off on Wednesday evening. I just wish it had just held off, for all concerne

I believe a garden is an evolving space, one which we develop to our individual requirements. If you have watched Gardeners World on BBC TV, you will know Monty Don is changing parts of his garden in Longmeadow, introducing more drought resistant plants. This is on the assumption we will continue to have warm dry summers. Monty Don’s two acre garden is huge, compared to most peoples and I therefore understand, keeping everything watered takes a considerable amount of time

What a joy it is to once again be sitting in the shade at the end of our garden, while I compose today’s blog on my laptop. I had expected to be monitoring the Auction House’s property auction this morning to see whether the camping field (off Beach Close) sold and if so what was the final bid. However, I noticed on Monday, Right Move have marked it, sold prior to auction. No doubt, the Beeston Regis Group will be relieved to no longer own the site which, over the years, c

It’s very pleasant to be sitting on one of our garden benches, under the shade of our Portugal laurel tree, while I compose this blog. Following on from my last blog, after the rain, I checked the soil in our garden and the water butts. The ground was still very dry and there is no noticeable increase in the water levels. There is a distinct lack of colour in our flower borders. Plants which are usually producing new blooms, as fast as I deadhead them, are failing to gener

While most parts of England, have been basking in the sun and enjoying warmth, for several days now, we’ve only seen glimpses of the sun and the temperatures have been struggling to get near to twenty centigrade. It’s been a different case further south, where our family live in Bucks. We had a video link up with them on Saturday when they were having a get together and a BBQ to celebrate our youngest son’s birthday. Photos followed of them sat outside under an awning, whe

What has happened to the weather? It’s been raining pretty well every day this month and it’s not been particularly warm either. As a result, there were only about ten sellers for both todays and last week’s car boot sales, on the sports field. In my move towards growing more perennials, I am always on the look-out for suitable plants at the car boot sales. I was pleased to purchase three last week to fill in some gaps. Today, I was tempted by the pots of alliums but wit

I’ve often heard and read about using comfrey leaves to make a garden fertiliser, often referred to as comfrey tea. Why it’s referred to as ‘tea’, I don’t know especially as it is renowned for its pungent unpleasant smell. With plenty of comfrey plants, growing on rough areas and verges in the village, I decided to give it a go. I collected enough leaves, from various plants, to half fill a bucket. I chopped the leaves up, covered them in water, put a lid on the bucket an

After discovering that most proprietary cat foods contain little meat (they are bulked out with other ingredients and not those that carnivores would normally eat), we moved our cat Sid onto chicken and fish. We also give him dried food to keep his teeth clean and occasionally an all-meat cat food which comes frozen, from Kat Kins. For some reason, Sid has decided he no longer likes the chicken. This is typical of cats to ‘go off’ certain foods and usually when you have a

According to both the weather apps, I have on my phone, today is going to be the best of the four over the Easter period. It has definitely off to a good start with blackbirds singing as dawn approached, followed by a beautiful sunrise. We opted to take our morning walk inland, along the field edges and the back of the allotments. Dipping down, off Madams Lane, we were greeted with masses of blackthorn blossom (see photo below). Peter remarked, with so much blossom, ther

The sun, blue skies and warmth have spurred me on into some more spring cleaning, including cleaning the windows inside. They didn’t look dirty but the water in the bucket, which I had to change a couple of times, told a different story! Spring cleaning then continued outside. Our north facing patio doesn’t get much sun and over the winter months slippery black algae builds up. I was looking online for an easy way of cleaning this, instead of getting down on my hands and

Earlier in the week, we enjoyed some beautiful spring days that was until yesterday when a sea fret rolled in mid-morning, blanketing us in grey. When I took the washing in, during the afternoon, it was just as damp as when I hung it out first thing! No fret today but definitely grey and cold too. Going back to when it was sunny and bright; on Thursday morning, we took a walk across the fields. We listened to bird song, saw a couple of muntjac deer, noted the blossom is

I’ve held back writing my blog (normally I write every four days), so I can include a paragraph about today’s talk at the Gardening Club. Before I cover this, I’ve got a few things to mention. Firstly, on Friday morning we saw a Coastguard vehicle at the top of the zigzag path. We discovered, why they were present from a report, published on NNDC’s Facebook page, which reads as follows - ‘ EMERGENCY RESPONSE: Yesterday, emergency services were called to a potential Unexpl

What a difference a few extra degrees of warmth brings. With temperatures rising, over the past couple of days, we’ve only needed the central heating on, first thing and again late afternoon into the evening. The door into the conservatory has been open and this is where we’ve been back breakfasting and lunching, while looking out over the garden. Yesterday, I enjoyed my mug of midmorning coffee, (for the first time this year) sat on a garden bench, sun on my face, listeni

I appreciate not everyone wants to be on Facebook or any other type of social media. I am therefore publishing the contents of a recent post on Facebook to help ‘spread the word’. . The Belfry Foundation Trust As you may know, Simon Gurney is currently the sole Trustee of The Belfry Foundation Trust. He’s planning to redistribute the assets and hand over control to those who are better placed to manage the Trust and benefit directly. Simon would therefore like to meet intere

According to a report on the TV, we’ve had just five hours of sunshine this year. Today, this number should be more than doubled – it’s been glorious from sunrise to sunset. It’s pretty cold in the shade but this has to be a small price to pay after day upon day of grey and as an extra bonus, no rain today. With the bottom of the garden in full sun, I pruned our apple tree. I used the loppers to reduce the height and other branches were trimmed back, using secateurs, to

On Tuesday afternoon, I went to the Overstrand Gardening Club’s first meeting of 2026. Annual subscriptions of £15 were being collected plus there was the usual raffle. On the subject of the raffle, last November I won the raffle, a £10 gardening voucher. I used this to purchase an Amaryllis growing kit from Thistle and Tide in Cromer. The bulb was truly spectacular, producing two spikes of buds, each with five blooms; I was well impressed. The meeting’s speaker was Dr D

I couldn’t resist the blue skies and sun, on Saturday morning. It wasn’t long before I was out in the garden. Initially, I thought it would be, despite the sun, too cold to stay more than about a half an hour but I ended up spending the entire morning in the back garden, tidying and manuring borders along with the soft fruit bushes and trimming shrubs. Yes, the soil was wet but considering the amount of rain we’ve had over the past month, not stodgy. When I’d finished, my t

I’ve started working on a new vlog for my YouTube channel. This covers my recipe for pork with celery and given it’s not that easy to film while cooking and narrating at the same time, I have chosen to use photos instead, with a voice over. I suppose I shouldn’t call it a vlog (video log). Maybe plog (photo log) would be more appropriate. I could call it a phlog but this would probably get confused with flog, meaning to sell something. Unless, I can think of another term